“Back in the woods? Another robbery to stop?” asked Proto, squinting through midnight’s gloom into the foliage. Before he’d even finished speaking, though, he’d seen enough to know this wasn’t the shadowscape of elms and ashes where his first visit had occurred. That dream had had a dark and washed-out and high-contrast look, like horror films involving camping trips in forests.

  This place, in contrast, was fey and lush. A full moon breached the canopy ahead and lit the rich blues and reds of forest flowers. Elder and rowan trees cast swaying shadows on the underbrush, which was flush with bulbous plants and huge rounded leaves. Verdant aromas hung upon the midsummer breeze, not yet fraught with the musk of fallen leaves.

  “Does this look like a robbery dream to you?” asked Astrid to his rear.

  “Not unless the robber is David the Gnome or a gang of Smurfs,” he replied.

  “Your references make even me feel old,” she said.

  “No? Teddy Ruxpin, maybe? ‘Come dream with me tonight . . . !’” he sang.

  “Please don’t ever do that again.”

  Needless to say, Proto had declined to hear the dreamer’s bio in advance of this visit. He was going in blind—literally so, in this shadowy area where he and Astrid were standing. He advanced toward the moonlit clearing ahead.

  As he crossed the threshold into the lunar glow, Astrid gasped behind him.

  Then, she bwa-ha-hahed uncontrollably.

  He frowned. “I take it I’ve unintentionally amused you.”

  “Look at yourself!” she cried. “You pixie puff!”

  He looked down. He was barechested and wearing a sort of leafy loincloth. Flowery accoutrements adorned his arms and legs. Feeling a prickle around his ears, he touched it and felt a laurel crown.

  He also felt an odd weight on his back. Reaching back he felt—sigh—fairy wings. He gave them a test flutter, then grimly nodded.

  “Wait, did you just flap those?” Astrid cackled crazily, as he continued to study his fairy garb sadly. “I take it all back! Stick with the tracksuit from now on!”

  Proto was feeling this was all very unfortunate when, abruptly, he wondered: If I’m wearing this, then what about . . . ? He turned to face her, just as she was stepping into the moonlight.

  Astrid was clad in a leaf bikini with a see-through cobweb robe overtop. A leafy tiara adorned her hair, which sparkled silvery in the moonlight. So did her giant violet moth wings. She seemed oblivious to their slow fluttering, as well as the rest of her getup.

  Proto was proud how straight he kept his face, as he eyed her up and down. The lunar glow played along her frame and caught on every curve. Of course, her usual grey jumpsuit hadn’t left much to the imagination. But this was something else altogether.

  “I guess the wings match the eyes, huh?” he finally said.

  She stared, sifting through his words.

  Then, she looked down—and gasped. She threw her arms across her breasts and nether parts, like a nymph in a Renaissance painting.

  “My . . . queen?” A smile spread across his face. “My fairy queen?”

  She squinted intently at her outfit, such as it was, then cursed. “First’s name! Why won’t it let me change this?!”

  “It’s meant to be. Come, my lady of the woodland realm!” Proto held a regal hand forth. “We’ll wander the darkling ways! We’ll tarry in the shadowy bowers!”

  “I’ll burn this place down,” swore Astrid, as her wings fluttered with fury. “I’m gonna go Gargamel on this dreamer!”

  “Be at ease, my sovereign of the sprites!” he urged.

  “I’ll tear it all down Wooly Whatsit-style!” she raged, sparkling involuntarily.

  “I knew you knew my references!” Proto offered her a high-five, but she just stomped past him—as best she could, wearing dewdrop slippers. Flowers sprouted up and bloomed about her feet.

  “Stop that!” She tried to squish the new blossoms back into the dirt, but that seemingly just made them reproduce.

  “You could always . . . soar above all this!” suggested Proto, holding a hand toward her violet moth wings.

  She stared distrustfully at him, then gave her wings a little flap. Stardust fell from them and powdered the earth with a silvery shimmer.

  She whirled around and went back to stomping. “I look like bloody Anima!” she grumbled. She headed toward the darkest trail in sight. But as she approached, blue will o’ wisps flared up along the path, lighting her way.

  “First’s name . . . !” Astrid cursed again.

  Proto decided he liked this dreamer.

  They followed the fairy fires until they heard several voices ahead. Their banter sounded more “twenty-something city dweller” than “winged creature of the woodland realm.” So, Fairy Queen Astrid and her fellow sovereign stayed hidden in the brush as they approached. That’s probably what fairies would do, after all.

  A brown-haired and goateed man in a turtleneck was complaining about a book he’d had to read. “Not only is it BS, he writes like he has a B.S. No offense, Himari.”

  “None taken, Sweetums,” replied a slight young woman in a red dress. “Someone has to calculate the tip after dinner. And pay it.”

  “Zing!” he lamented. “But true, unfortunately.”

  “What, there’s not a market for dissertations on Cervantes’ Italian literary influences in writing Don Quixote?” asked a grey-eyed woman with blonde hair.

  “Alas, so it seems,” sighed the man. “How’s the market for research on Shakespeare’s boyhood religion and its manifestations in Hamlet’s soliloquies, Helen?”

  “Not rolling in the dough yet,” she confirmed sadly. “Except at the bakery. Where I’m paid a fair wage, unlike Atlean University.”

  “That’s why I date a B.S.” The man snuggled Himari close. “Love you, Honey-bunches. Money-bunches.”

  “I like you too, Dimitri,” she sighed languidly. “Sometimes.”

  The blonde woman, Helen, ran a hand through her hair and rolled her eyes. She looked a bit like Dahlia—if, perhaps, not quite as favored by the gods of beauty. Not a face to launch a thousand ships, perhaps, but enough to burn the topless towers of the local university.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Proto smiled and absently wished Dahlia were here. She’d understand that reference. And then she’d respond something something about “topless” and “beauty” and things that are “burning” hot, like the dirty old pedagogue trapped in a knockout body that she was. She’d probably like this group.

  Proto and Astrid listened to their conversation for several minutes. It wasn’t clear yet who the dreamer was. But Proto pieced together that this was a camping retreat for graduate student instructors at a local university—“GSIs,” as they were called. In response to complaints about low instructor pay and lack of benefits, the school had added this retreat in a school-owned forest as a “benefit” and valued it at $2,500. The fact that it was BYOB just added insult to injury.

  The three who’d spoken thus far were GSIs. But the fourth, Sancho, was a janitor. He’d been busy cleaning up Solo cups and vomit during the staff retreat last week—a night of free beer and bowling at a local alley—so they’d stuck him with the GSIs instead. This was a somewhat awkward pairing, but they were all doing their best.

  It helped that they’d just finished drinking a few bottles of two-buck chuck. Which, of course, Himari had purchased. She’d offered Sancho a cup when she’d seen him sitting by himself earlier. One cup had become five or six. And so, when the three instructor friends had wandered off from the broader group into the woods, he’d tagged along.

  “Are you sure you don’t have one more bottle with you?” Helen was asking Himari. “I felt sure we had four!”

  “Alas, we did,” Himari sighed, holding up two sets of two fingers. “Trust the math major.”

  “Do you think there’s a store nearby?” pressed Helen.

  The others stared at her beneath the moonlit leafy boughs.

  She fixed them with a tipsy smile. “Come on! We can make an adventure of it!”

  “Maybe you could convince me, if Himari’s buying mezcal. I’m into mezcal lately,” replied Dimitri. “Are there any you’d recommend, Sancho?”

  “I . . . don’t know any,” replied the janitor. “I mostly drink High Life. When it’s on discount.”

  Himari slapped the back of Dimitri’s hand surreptitiously and mouthed come on! at him.

  His eyes went wide and he held his hands out innocently.

  “Anyway,” said Himari, “we should either find that ‘store’ or find our way back to the tents. Everyone’s probably sleeping by now. Do you remember the way back, Dimitri?”

  “Not a clue!” he replied.

  “I think I do,” said Sancho.

  “Well, my friend, lead the way,” directed the goateed man.

  “I’ll catch up in a sec,” called Helen as the others walked off.

  “Time to break the seal?” asked Dimitri.

  “Be polite!” she scolded daintily. “Yes, and I’m sure I’ll regret it.”

  The others shuffled off through the darkness, and Helen made her way into the underbrush. There, she broke the seal.

  As she did so, she grumbled to herself—first inaudibly, then more loudly. “Hi, I’m Himari. I don’t know why men throw themselves at me! All I have are beautiful black eyes, a size-zero waist, gracefully feminine mannerisms, and loads of money!”

  She groused a few more half-discernible sentences. “Not her fault. Stupid. Unfair.”

  “I think we’ve found our dreamer,” Fairy King Proto whispered to Fairy Queen Astrid. She nodded in agreement. “And . . . I think we’re about to meet her.”

  Helen’s return route through the foliage was leading her squarely toward the two of them.

  “Greetings,” hailed Proto with a palm raised, as she stepped in view.

  She gasped and gave a little shriek, throwing up her hands defensively. The mist lapping at their feet abruptly swirled up to waist level.

  Seeing neither a robber nor a murderer, but instead two winged fairies in leaf-garb, her grey eyes remained wide. But her hands returned to fastening her belt, which was undone and dangling. “What do you want?” she demanded tipsily, struggling to get the belt prong through the hole.

  “A fair evening to you too, Helen,” replied Proto.

  “You know my name? Been listening in, have you? Creepster!” she accused. “ . . . wait. Don’t I know you? I feel like I met you once, but maybe I was really drunk.”

  Proto eyed the flush-faced and tousled girl up and down as she struggled with her belt. “That seems feasible.”

  “Well, anyway who do you think you are?” demanded Helen, finally fastening her belt. “Oberon and Titania? Are you from that cosplay convention?”

  “You may call me Queen Moonwing,” replied Astrid serenely. “And this is King Utterflutter.”

  Oh, Hell no. Proto frowned and opened his mouth.

  But Helen already was replying. “Well, my good King and Queen, how can I help you? No—how may I be of service?” She smiled and slurred the words a little, doing something vaguely curtsey-like.

  “Better to ask how we can serve you,” replied Proto, feeling a rush of inspiration.

  “Oh, I don’t think you can help me,” Helen sighed. “Not unless you can give me some two-buck chuck. Or mezcal. Or make that guy over yonder fall in love with me.” She waved toward the path where Dimitri and the others had walked off. “Please don’t tell him I said that. I might be a teensy bit drunk.”

  “Make him fall in love with you?” replied Astrid. “And how would you propose we do that?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the fairies, right?” retorted Helen. “Cast a spell on him! Make him fall in love with the first girl he sees after waking up. Then, I’ll go wake him up, and we’ll live happily ever after.”

  “Hmm,” pondered Fairy Queen Astrid. “It would rather offend my scruples to make someone fall in love against his will. Especially if he’s already in love with someone else!” She furrowed her brow in faint reproof.

  “But what if he’s making the wrong choice!” pressed Helen. “What if you’re really just helping him see the true love that’s meant for him?”

  “That’s an awfully big assumption, don’t you think?” replied Astrid.

  “Oh, psh!” waved the blonde-haired woman. “Dimitri just thinks I’m too tall. Or maybe he likes dark hair. And dark subtle eyes. With that perfect curve, speaking of both innocence and sophistication. But I’m sure it’s something superficial like that.”

  “I could give you dark hair if you’d like,” offered Astrid.

  “I need fairy magic, not hair dye!” cried Helen.

  “Tell you what,” Fairy King Proto jumped in. “My radiant Queen here will use her fairy magic to make you as fair as fair can be. Like her!” Astrid scowled at him, but he pressed on. “Flowing locks, silvery moonlit shimmers, the whole deal.”

  “Then,” he continued, “we’ll go ask your friend over there—Dimitri, yes?—what’s the most beautiful thing he can think of. And you’ll be standing there with us, all sparkly and done-up. And Himari will be there too, all sweaty and disheveled. And then he’ll tell us the answer.”

  “Whatever he says, we’ll give it to him, on the spot,” declared Proto. “And if he says it’s you, it’s you! We’ll hold a nice big fairy wedding for you. That’s about the best we can do.”

  Astrid had arched an eyebrow skeptically at the start of this proposal. But by the end, she was nodding with a smile somewhere between queenly and puckish.

  “Hm,” mused Helen. The mists had swirled up from waist level to chest level as Proto spoke. “You’re not quite like fairies as I imagined them. And I should probably be more flummoxed about meeting fairies at a GSI forest retreat. But I’ve had just enough wine not to worry about it! Let’s do this.”

  “Very well!” Fairy Queen Astrid waved two moonlit fingers.

  At once, a fey glamor transposed itself down Helen’s frame, shedding sparkles in her hair and a glowing smoothness on her skin. Her outfit, essentially, remained the same outfit. But now it looked like it’d been handsewn by an expert seamstress to flatter Helen’s frame, and not mass-produced in a sweatshop and purchased from a discount bin at the mall.

  “Wow. I haven’t felt this cute and glittery since senior prom!” marveled Helen, holding a tress in front of her eyes.

  “You’re welcome,” nodded the Fairy Queen.

  The dreamer and two fairies walked the wooded path that the three university employees had taken—correction, the three independent contractors unentitled to benefits. The fae royalty were attended by panoplies of stardust-shedding moths and ushered along by flaring blue will o’ wisps.

  “That’s so cool . . . !” admired Helen, as one moth perched upon her finger. “Who would’ve thought the University Arboretum would hold all this?”

  “Yes, who could conceive such a thing,” replied Astrid drily.

  “What?” Helen looked over with a blink. The mist had been sinking, but now halted and swelled a little.

  “Wonders abound where we expect them least,” said Proto, “is what my royal consort meant, I think.”

  “Ah. Yes, that sounds very fairy,” agreed Helen.

  There was something odd about this dreamer. Like she was half-aware this was a dream, and savoring it rather than recoiling back toward wakefulness.

  “Still, I admire whoever up there came up with all this!” mused Helen, waving vaguely moonward. “Assuming it’s not just random chance, like Himari the math major claims. Silly left-brained types!” She smiled upon the motley and abounding verdancy.

  “I’m sure you do,” replied Astrid, wrinkling her nose as flowers sprouted between her toes.

  “‘Such tricks hath strong imagination that, if it would but apprehend some joy, it comprehends some bringer of that joy’!” quoted the Shakespearean studies GSI.

  “‘Joy’ may be too strong a word.” The Fairy Queen removed a moth from her eartip. It fluttered away in shining curlicues, leaving sinking powdery trails in midair.

  “Hm?” asked Helen, distracted by her rapture.

  “‘Joy’ is too small a word for such great beauty,” said Proto, “is what my eminent wife meant, I think.”

  “Ah. Well said,” agreed Helen absently, admiring some bulbous fruits and flora.

  Some voices were audible ahead. Three forms came in view, mere silhouettes in the meager starlight.

  They soon turned to regard the three approachers, apparently hearing the twigs snapping and leaves rustling beneath Helen’s feet. The two fairies made no such noise. Spontaneous growths of grass tufts cushioned their footfalls.

  Meanwhile, the mists had sunk to about ankle-level. The white wisps looked natural in the fey and luscious woods.

  “Hi all,” called Helen to her peers. “Meet my new friends.”

  The two winged sovereigns of the fae stepped into the moonlight.

  “What the F?!” cried Himari, stepping backward. “ . . . wait. Don’t I know you?”